Feature: Bunch Of Fives – Fetish Films

If films about fetish are your thing, here are five you should seek out

By Sheena Revolta
on Monday, August 22nd, 2016

Kiwi-journalist David Farrier stirs up a hornet’s nest when he investigates the world of competitive endurance tickling in new film Tickled, made with Dylan Reeve. This is an extraordinary documentary that explores the grimy underworld of one particular fetish production house.

Finding the young men who star in the tickle-toons damaged, both mentally and financially, Tickled goes deep into a world of financial control, online privacy, and the shady side of US law. The documentary has all the twists, turns and tension of a grade-A horror, but never loses it’s sense of humanity.

Played out against a backdrop of run-down rust-belt American suburbs, this fascinating and original movie is being shown by the Tyneside Cinema from today until Thursday 25th August, read more about it and get tickets here.

And if films about fetish are your thing, here are five others you should seek out.

Maitresse
(Barbet Schoeder, FR 1975)
When a small time crook and his girlfriend fix the plumbing in a Paris flat, they discover that the downstairs neighbour is a dominatrix, fond of nailing her clients to the floorboards with a thumbtack through the foreskin.
Starring Gerard Depardieu and Bulle Ogier, the film was originally denied certification in the UK, but it’s a masterpiece of storytelling and cinematography.

Fetishes
(Nick Broomfield, UK 1996)
A feature length documentary by the enfant-terrible of British documentary making, Fetishes goes undercover at Pandora’s Box, a dungeon based on swanky Fifth Avenue, NYC. While the staff talk about their work with a mixture of passion and detachment, clients experience the pleasure and the pain in equal measure, with rubber and leather in plentiful supply.

Sick: The Life & Death Of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
(Kirby Dick, US 1997)
Flanagan died at age 43 of cystic fibrosis, but not before leaving a considerable catalogue of writings and performances, the philosophy of which is explored in this amazing movie.
Using BDSM to regain control of his failing body, Flanagan discusses pain, illness, medicine and sexuality, with his death shadowing and celebrating an extraordinary life.

Love Hard
(Sensate Films, AUS 2014)
Despite the blood, sweat and snot, Love Hard is one of the most beautiful explorations of the complexities of kink you’ll see. The Australian bush backdrops a series of honest and emotional vignettes with couples and singles on the BDSM scene, asking the difficult questions in a sympathetic and understanding manner. Made from within the kink scene, Love Hard is in turns full of love, pain and human warmth.

Crash
(David Cronenberg, US 1996)
Another film which struggled for certification on release, Crash shifts JG Ballard’s novel from 1960s West London and the Westway to the highways that intersect Los Angeles.
Telling the stories of a group of middle class paraphiliacs who take sexual pleasure in car accidents, the film is stylish, thrilling and somewhat lacking in emotion, despite the subject matter. A period piece already, it’s also worth searching youtube for an early version of the story starring Gabrielle Drake.